July 15, 2009

In the running department that is!!! WHooohoooo! It's only a start, but it is a beginning.

Monday July 13 Workout :

Run 1 min, Walk 1 min, for a total of 40 min.

This is huge for me because of my knee issues. So I will take it for now!

Also my weigh in for Friday last week, Friday July 10th was "SAME". My second week remaining the exact same. You can see my progress here.

Now the only downside is I am still struggling with fitting stuff in on a regular basis. I miss my awesome walks with Jess :( So far I haven't been able to get a regular workout routine going with starting my new job yet...... I am not giving up - just frustrated at this moment. I need to workout regularly - Everyday if I am going to get serious and get healthy and lose this weight.

Also I am frustrated not finding a set time/routine to blog more regularly....

And finally I am slipping into this summer "what the hell" attitude of free eating/drinking. The old "more is better" routine. The "I'm on vacation, so I can pig out" routine. And my personal favorite the old "it's a special occasion, I deserve it" routine. The last one kills me the most I would say. It is funny how one can make everything a "special occasion". My weight is staying the same because I am A. not working out as much and B. eating like a whale on the weekend and then trying to be good during the week before my weigh day on Friday. I HATE this routine. So I am blogging about it to be aware of it and so I can CHANGE this before it takes over my summer.

I don't want to have the kind of life where "excess eating" is a part of it. I want to have summer get togethers where it is about the company not the "massive" amounts of food. I will always enjoy food. I have accepted that, because I realize I am a food lover (foodie), but I do think I can change the amounts of excess to a small reasonable taste of things rather than a "stuff oneself session".

Special occasions are basically EVERYDAY of one's life if one appreciates life so this being said, everyday should be treated as a gift. If life is a gift one should value one's health and therefore have PROPER, REASONABLE PORTIONS to be healthy, which will in turn allow one to appreciate life all the more.

Well that is my rant for the day. I am feeling frustrated with myself as I can see things slipping in my choices and I am not going to let that happen. I WILL REACH MY GOAL.

I have been preparing some healthy food as of late I would just say I have gone astray with portion sizes being too big and eating some things that I just shouldn't be eating at all.

Some of my food choices as of late:

Broccoli Salad

I added prosciutto ham instead of bacon. I used yogurt and light mayo for the dressing so it was considerably less fat than a regular broccoli salad.

I tried one of the new Aisan markets that just opened and I got a package of fresh Kaffir lime leaves, so I made this beef stir fry with kaffir lime leaves. It was an ingredient I recognized from Thai cooking so I was excited to find a recipe to try them. Unfortunately I had doubled the recipe and the proportions of lime leaves in the sauce did not work out. The dish was overpowered with lime leaf flavor. Better luck next time on the recipe....

This one one of those "treats" I was talking about because the biscotti was from a "special" bakery. If I would have had 1/2 of the biscotti it would have been reasonable but I ate 2. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. Brakes please....

I bought this cookbook today because snacking for me is so important that I get it right so I don't take in too many calories and so I am not "starving" at the end of the day and ready to eat just anything when I come home after work. I will give some of these recipes in the book a try for my snacks at work and then review some of the recipes.

Overall I had a great day and need to remember that this is a journey (sappy alert) so I must press on and pull up the boot straps and find some determination to stick to my goals.

Spent the day shuffling the kids from various sports camps which was nice to watch them getting out there and getting fit and having fun. Then went to a park for a picnic.

Met this stray guy although I don't think he is a stray just a wanderer.

Had a dinner party with some great friends! Yes, I ate/drank too much all in the name of "a special occasion". But I have covered that and that is going to stop. The company was AWESOME!

Lessons learned today. Enjoy people not the EXCESS of food. Reasonable, small amounts of food are OK to savor.

(Sappy Alert again) EVERYDAY is really a gift and "special occasion". Treat your gift of life importantly by respecting your body to get you through to another day. More simply: Everyday is a special occasion you can't pig out everyday or you won't be healthy!!!!

On that note I will bid you goodnight and Have a great day everyone!!!

June 29, 2009

That was my workout today. I went for a 1 hour walk with my kids and our dog. My son on his new longboard and my daughter with her new rollerblades and our dog with her saucy attitude. It was a good workout and I am still aiming toward running. Glad to get back to the workout routine.

I love looking at the world from my dog's perspective.

I ate healthy today lots of salad and veggies. Tried to make up for too much food on the weekend.

I added fresh basil to the red leaf lettuce and a few kalamata olives, green onions, celery, tomatoes and cucumber....

Dressing is 6 tablespoons of olive oil to 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. I only used a small amount.

Tonight I am going to do some crunches and the exercise called "the bridge". I have been going to physio for the last little while for my knee/hip/pelvis out of whack and I need to strengthen the glutes and the muscle on the inside of the knee to balance out the pull on the knee so "the bridge it is". And then some stretches. I am trying to look at exercise as each little bit helps instead of an all or nothing attitude which I tend to do sometimes. Hopefully this will help me get to my goal.

June 28, 2009

Life can be so busy which is why I am glad to have this blog to keep me focused and on track. My last week was full of end of the year school events, many milestone family moments, my good friends 4oth birthday, and making plans for another good friend who is moving away. So all of this added up to NO time to blog and NO time to workout.

Which leads me to my next thought and that is "life is ALWAYS busy and working out must be a priority no matter how busy I get." I will use this week as a reminder to plan ahead and schedule in those workouts because I can't afford NOT to. I really missed my walk with Jess this week :( And I have really noticed when I don't get those workouts in how it affects my sleep and hunger levels and mood....in short EVERYTHING!

Thankfully I did eat pretty good this week and when I jumped on the scale on Friday for my weigh in day and I lost -2 lbs this week! So I feel great about that. You can see my progress here.

Some of my food choices this week:

Cherries, my favorite!

Potato Salad season, I made this for a bbq at a friends house. Of course everyone has their own potato salad twist and everyone compares it to their Mom's. I add pickles and pickle juice to mine, some mustard and (light) mayo and eggs, green onion, radishes, and of course potatoes and salt and pepper with paprika on top.

Lots of great fruit out there now.

My husband made this great pork loin with a dry rub; the original recipe was for ribs but the rub worked just as good on the pork loin:

This was chopped salad and a barbecued chicken breast. I really found it helpful to up my salad intake this last week; it was a great way to cut some calories out of my lunch.

This was a not so low calorie splurge, but well worth it. For my good friend's birthday we went to an Indian restaurant and had a fabulous buffet of various Indian dishes. I am not sure of all the dishes, some of them were butter chicken, butter paneer and a paneer with a spinach sauce and various other great items. I do wish I would have had a smaller portion. One of my ongoing goals is to enjoy food and have smaller portions all at the same time. Less is more. This is a huge concept for me as I was raised to "eat big healthy farm portions". It is something I am working on.

The naan bread was amazing and made fresh.

I had to show my friends birthday cake that I made. It was a carrot cake with cream cheese icing and count them, yes, 40 candles on top! (I love you Donna!!)

I am loving the painted daisies in the garden this time of year they are so vivid!

June 19, 2009

Well I am very happy with my weigh in today. This is my first weigh day on a Friday and I lost -3.2 lbs! I will take that. You can see my progress here. And Friday seems to work better for the weigh in day for sure, so Friday it is.

Today I went on a field trip with my daughter's class to a small French Canadian town where they have over 32 murals to depict the French history of the town. It is a very quaint, friendly town with some nice art. We walked around in the rain and some sun with a tour guide and learned some of the history of the town through the art.

I packed a nice lunch to keep me going. I made a sandwich on a whole grain bun, with honey ham, avocado, dijon mustard, and some sprouts. It was great.

I found these great sprouts at the grocery store. They are a combo pack with, Clover, Pea, Mung, Lentil, Adzuki and Garbanzo sprouts.

I might look into making my own sprouts. Although this little package is very easy to buy.

I thought the combination was yummy.

Day 5 of Salad Week (today, Friday), a cucumber salad with cucumber, celery, sprouts, cilantro, raisins, pumpkin seeds with a simple yogurt dressing. Dressing was yogurt, olive oil, lemon, and salt and pepper. The salad was refreshing and light. The additions of raisins gave it just enough sweetness.

No workout today and still thinking about workout goals and more nutrition goals. Time to dig out my to do list binder.

June 18, 2009

I am referring to how my brain works whenever I tell myself to follow a specific rule or guideline regarding weight loss/fitness. Every time before my weigh in day I say "I'm going to have a really good day with eating today and eat mostly salads and veggies and stay within my limits". The next thing I know I am craving pancakes and that is what I make for dinner! I only had one but really! I was going to have salad. There must be some classic self sabotage reasoning going on or something. I have had a great week but sometimes when my weigh day nears or when I over think things I "freak out" in the food department.....Maybe freak out is a bit harsh but I eat too much or the wrong things and usually I don't enjoy them so something else is definitely going on.....

Still moving forward and on a positive note:

Thursday Workout (today):

Walk with my good friend Lara about 30 min. - I forgot my camera :( but the walk was great! It is so nice to get out there and get a walk in and socialize at the same time. I hope to have more of these walks...

June 16, 2009

This morning I had plans to go walking with my dear friend Jess. As I lie in bed trying to drag myself out of my slumber I realized it was raining. I began making plans of all of the tasks I could get done around the house and all of the nagging jobs that I could get caught up on if I skipped my walk. Then I thought " I NEED to workout much more than I need to work in the yard or do laundry". That stuff will be waiting for me when I get back. As well as the much needed exercise, I love my walks with my friend as we can get caught up on our busy lives. My point is I am glad I made the decision to make the exercise the priority even though it would have been easier to snuggle back under the covers and sleep longer because it was raining and I had stayed up late the night before and I was so tired......(there could always be excuses). Or I can choose commitment. Now I just have to repeat this model each day. Get up and move.

So I called Jess, and said, "yes, I'll be there". We did walk and the rain stopped and it was the right choice.

Tessa enjoyed the walk too.

After our walk Jess gave me this unassuming box and said it was nothing just a little gift for my birthday, take it home and open it.

So I opened the box and THIS is what I found! WOW, is this not the BEST GIFT ever!!!! I was so excited! The perfect pot I have been coveting. THANKS JESS!!! I love the color I love everything about it.

So of course I had to christen it with something good. I have been wanting to try Jamie Oliver's recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala so this was the day.

I LOVE this pot!

Look at the pot just glowing....

I also love this recipe! It was excellent and the whole family (of picky eaters) ate it.

This is a keeper recipe. I made my Tikka Masala paste from scratch and did not use Pataks. There is a recipe in the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution (or Ministry of Food in the UK). The curry was not complicated to make but complex in flavors and it uses simple ingredients.

The yogurt, lemon and cilantro were great additions to the dish for serving.

Day 2 of Salad Week, was also another clean out the fridge salad. Not too exciting but good. I only ate 1/2 of it as it was huge.

I am grateful for having so many great supportive people in my life caring and offering encouraging support to which I am VERY appreciative. Today, specifically, I want to tell my friend Jess how important she is to me, first of all besides the kick$%@ cookware she bought me, she has been such a great cheerleader and true friend. So thanks for sticking by me Jess, literally through thick and thin. Your the best!

June 15, 2009

I have decided to do a salad week. I am going to have a different salad each day for lunch. I will try to include some protein in it too to make it last me till supper. If anyone has any good salad ideas I would love to hear them. Or if anyone knows of any good blogs with salads worth checking out I would be interested in looking.

Today was a kind of clean out the fridge salad.

The greens were spinach & mixed baby greens, some carrots, a couple of strawberries, some cut up cauliflower, some leftover salmon on top a bit of crumbled feta and 2 tsp of hummus. For the dressing I just sprinkled some balsamic vinegar on top. It was very good. I am so loving hummus in my salad. It adds so much flavor for a small amount plus it adds an interesting texture.

I added a couple of strawberries, a few almonds and pumpkin seeds to top it off. I like my oatmeal with a little 1% milk. I LOVE oatmeal.

Supper was leftover coleslaw, some watermelon and some pasta with homemade spaghetti meat sauce. I tried to fill my plate with more salad and fruit than pasta and sauce. These plates are small size dinner plates.

Monday Workout (today):

Did a great walk with Tessa today. It was 1 hour. I tried to walk fast to get the heart rate up. Still testing the running but not quite there. Had a great session at physio and I am on my way and I know I will be able to start my run program soon. Also did 4 sets of 20 bridge exercise & shoveled rock for 3 hours.

I am moving my official weigh days to Fridays as of this week so I will not be weighing in this week on Tuesday but I will weigh in on Friday. It makes more sense for me with how my week is structured to try it this way.

June 11, 2009

When you are going along and all is well and then wham-O you see a photo of yourself and it is not good. Which is what happen to me this week. I know it shouldn't matter but I have an idea of what I look like in my head and sometimes it really doesn't match what I see in pictures..... I used to be thin pre-kids so I have that thinner me in my mind. Not that I don't actually know that I have gained weight since then. Intellectually I get that but I still don't see myself as that big until I see myself and I am -big. This is just strengthening my resolve that I am on the right journey. And I can't let where I am at now stress me out. I am thankful for my body now and that I am healthy and able to lose this weight. Also in order to move forward one needs to admit what the truth to be able to change it. It is challenging to remain positive and focused sometimes instead of being mortified at how much weight I really do have to lose. But if I remain "mortified" what good is that going to do in really propelling me forward and making progress to get to my goal. So onward I go with a grateful outlook .....

I had another great walk with Jess & Tess on Wednesday which was awesome.

A gorgeous day!

Summer - yeah!

Tess with her new doggy backpack. It did calm her down a bit but she still gets crazy when other dogs are passing us on the the trail which is very frustrating. Something I am working on. I wish Cesar Millan (The Dog Whisperer) could come to my house!

Food has been pretty good. Some of my choices:

Salad on the bottom, with 1/2 cup cottage cheese, 1/2 of an avocado, and 2 tbsp of lemon dill hummus. It does not look appetizing but it was very filling and good.

Some watermelon cubes. I am trying to have fruit as a snack.

A sandwich for lunch of black forest ham, with some bits of leftover roast beef, a couple of slices of feta cheese, dijon mustard and a pickle on whole wheat bread. Not my best lunch ever but not bad.

With some cottage cheese. Food has been a bit thrown together lately because I have been preoccupied with getting the planting of the garden done and the yard work so I haven't been doing much fabulous cooking the last two days.

I did find this cookbook at a thrift store today and I was thrilled. It was only $ 2.50, you can't beat that. I saw it on line for $28.03. I have another Moosewood Cookbook that I really like so I was very excited to see this low fat version and all of the nutritional info is listed which is great.

Lately I have been looking for more grain type recipes and there are a lot it appears in this cookbook.

I will try some recipes and give my reviews.

My workout today consisted of gardening - not exactly a killer workout but something. The lilacs are so beautiful right now. These were on the trail.

June 07, 2009

It was a fun filled weekend with a lot of activity. My son had his first football camp which was exciting; he's 12. I am so happy for my kids to do sports of any kind to keep them active and give them an active healthy lifestyle. I hope it is something they will love and continue on their own. Some of my best memories are and continue to be around doing sports. Many of my closest friends are the ones who I have met through sports or who I do athletic activities with.

He's number 67. They look so cute with their big shoulder pads and little chicken legs.

I am so excited we finally got our doggie backpack in the mail. We ordered it on EBAY and it came on Friday.

Tessa was pretty good with it on. She was a little slower but did not try to rub it off or anything. I think since she was used to the dog sled harness we put on her it wasn't too new of a sensation. Then I had the brilliant brainstorm of using it for her to help us deliver the kids papers for their paper route. So this is Tessa with her new job as Doggie Paper Girl. She was great with it on and it made the route a lot faster. We just have to watch if there are any cats or other dogs on our route ..... yes, she is a puppy and we are still training her.

Food this weekend was good and bad. I made a lot of good choices:

This was a great lunch, a salad with a great sandwich with avocados.

I love this Hairy Hill Mustard. I think I got it from Saskatchewan but I am not sure? It is very hot and has a nice flavor.

I did step on the scale earlier this week (before the weekend) and I was thrilled that it was down. And then I was telling myself "keep up all the good work and by next weigh day you will be down a good amount". And as soon as I do that something inside me freaks out and I just want to eat. What is that??? Why do I do that to myself???? I did not completely lose it and eat everything bad but I certainly had too much over the course of the weekend. NOT pictured here are pizza, cheese bread, a chocolate sundae and various other healthy foods but with portions that were too big. AHHHHhhhhh..... I don't like doing well on the week and then over indulging on the weekend.

But I know it is up to me to change this and be MODERATE and not equate food to fun. Food can be enjoyable but it is not the center of fun.

Anyway still more work to be done and I am not giving up.

So Sunday morning I had just gotten back from a walk with Tessa and I was walking up the front sidewalk and I bent down to pull a dandelion from the front flower bed and I found this. Seriously!! I was so pumped! WoW - if that isn't a sign I don't know what is!

I took a photo of the back in case anyone out there wants to play the lottery. If they hit it big then they can send me a million dollars for the good Karma!